Mummy Hands
by Obi the Kid
Summary: Takes place toward the end of Slashback, prior to the end scene with Robin. Cal has to deal with his current handicap.


**Title**: Mummy Hands

**POV:** Cal

**Author:** Obi the Kid

**Rating:** PG

**Summary:** Takes place toward the end of Slashback, prior to the end scene with Robin. Cal has to deal with his current handicap.

**Disclaimer**: All hail Rob Thurman! No profit here, I'm just having fun.

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR **_**SLASHBACK**_**!**

* * *

Robin and Promise had come and gone. Helping to clean and bandage wounds from the most superficial to the most severe – that being the raw flesh that was now my palms, thumbs and parts of my wrists. I was okay with my new found mummy hands, because they were evidence that Niko was alive and as much as his life was about keeping my ass alive and sane, my life was just as much to allow him to have a life beyond monsters. I had hoped that Promise would have stayed the night. Not that I wanted to think about my brother's love life anymore than I was already forced to, but he could've used the company. I certainly wasn't the best of company right now. I was pretty damn helpless when it came to most things that involved the use of my hands. You don't realize how much you need the damn things until you lose the use of them.

Enter my aforementioned brother.

I sat pitiful on the couch staring at the white-wrapped clumps of uselessness and a thought…no, a need…came to me.

"You should have gone before he wrapped," Niko said to me from above.

I nodded, starting to feel a bit fuzzy from the pain killers kicking in. "I thought maybe I'd lost enough water sweating when I was trying to get free from the chains that there wouldn't be any liquid left to exit in other ways."

"I won't remind you that I changed your diapers," too late, "but I will remind you that the only other option is for me to call Robin back and have him assist you with your duties. That would be quite entertaining. For me, anyway."

That was so not going to happen. I kicked Niko in the toe, succeeding only in sending a shooting pain from my food to my neck. Instead of giving me an _I told you so_, Niko held out a hand and tugged me upright and towards the bathroom. Things went' surprisingly quick after that. Niko spared me any Cal, Jr. comments and as he'd been doing twenty-whatever years now, he got me though another slice of hell that is my life. I stumbled on my way back to the couch, caught by my brother and turned down the hall. My bed was calling to me. The pain radiating through my hands, the headache from being zapped by Jack, the shock that my body still hadn't completely come down from…at the intense terror of losing my brother…it was all too much and I didn't think I could stay awake five minutes longer.

Inside my bedroom, I saw a miracle though. The floor. It _did_ exist. There really was carpet underneath the blankets of clothes. The random heaps were gone, replaced with neatly stacked piles of shirts, pants and other. There were even sheets on the bed. When the hell did Niko had time to shop for sheets between suffering a break down, being abducted, tortured and tormented? Even he wasn't that talented. Then I looked again. The sheets were gray. And they had a familiar scent to them. They smelled like Nik. Metal. Cleaning oil. Soft-scented shampoo. Herbal soap. These weren't new sheets. They were Nik's. He'd taken the sheets off his bed, because my bed was still bare from my world renowned laziness and he put them on mine…because he was my big brother and it's what he did. He looked after me, even when his own crap was hitting the fan with the force of a nuclear powered Mack truck.

Pushing me to the bed, he said, "Don't think this gets you out of cleaning this place up. I only straightened it so you didn't trip over one of your crude tee shirts in the middle of the night and break your neck. I can't fix broken necks, by the way. And I needed a new set of sheets anyway. Mine seem to have lost some of their Zen."

Yeah. Sure. That was the reason all right. Uh huh. Bed sheets didn't have Zen, you Buddha-loving bastard. Those were my thoughts as he helped ease me onto the mattress. My verbal reply was much less smart-assed than that. "Uh huh. Love you too, big brother."

I got a curious quirk of the lips. A Niko smile.

My head settled onto the soft pillow and a welcoming black void tugged hard to suck me in.

"Robin gave you enough to knock out an elephant. Stop resisting, Cal."

"Hard to after all the shit of these last couple days. Too many damn memories. Too many damn emotions. The both of us, Nik, we are both screwed three ways to Saturday and I don't even know what the hell that means. Messed up. That's us. Always have been. Always will be." I stopped and shrugged away the pull of the drugs. "I guess it's okay though, right? Better to be a total wreck in the company of your brother than trying to deal with it alone."

Niko surprised me by giving me another of those child-comforting hands through my hair. The last time he'd done it and most recently – yesterday, was it? - he'd been out of his mind and lost in the past. He was here now, in the present, but after what we'd been thorough in these last how many hours, I honestly couldn't tell you who needed the contact more. It was reassuring and calming and unlike yesterday when it told me he was broken and unable to find his way back, this time it gave me a different story. It told me that we were okay now. Okay for us. And that was saying a hell of a lot.

When he finally pulled his hand away, he told me to shut up and sleep or he'd smother me with my mummy hands…and that was okay too. It was all okay. Every single damn bit of it. It was okay that I'd need his help to shower, eat, conduct any and all bathroom-based bodily functions, scratch an itch, dress…I really didn't need to go on. It was okay. All of those things. We'd_ been_ through worse. We'd_ go_ through worse. We were alive. We still had a chance. _I_ still had a chance. A chance to defeat Grimm. A chance to defeat my own monster. A chance to give Niko a life he's always deserved. A life worth so much more than helping his partially mummified baby brother zip and unzip to and from the damn toilet for the next two weeks.

He deserved more, but he wouldn't take more. Not Niko. He was too good for that. He was too good for this whole damned world.

The blanket was pulled over me, up to my chin, my inflamed and excruciatingly painful-to-the-touch hands flat at my side underneath, just like when I was a kid and had gone though a bad day at school. Be it Grendel eyes watching me or bullies trying to best me, or my own temper finding its way free, despite my protests. I'd come home and Niko would be there. During the worst of those times – those nights - he'd tuck me into bed, whether that was a single mattress, a sleeping bag, or a sheet and pillow out in an empty field to be away from Sophia for the night…he'd tuck me in, exactly like this moment. The past was powerful, especially when it came to the one we'd shared. And now my eyes were fogging over and the meds were working hard to take down their elephant, but I battled long enough until he patted me on the arm and gave me an uncommon Niko wink. Something even rarer than one of his smiles.

"You need me, wake me. Good night, little brother."

I wouldn't need to wake him or call for him. Once I fell asleep, Nik would be back. He'd find a comfortable – or not so comfortable - spot on the floor or drag a kitchen chair into my room and he'd stay. That was Niko.

My brother.

He deserved so much better than me.

The truth was…I wanted the damn world for him. He deserved the damn world. But selfishly? Huh. Selfishly I needed my brother as he was now. As he always had been. My only constant. I needed him to be there in the middle of the night when my mind broke though the black-market pain pills, haunted by thoughts of a twelve year old nightmare recently relived in our present day. I needed him to be there when I woke up in the morning, the drugs having worn off and the bandages on my fleshy, weeping hands begging to be re-dressed. I needed him to push me when I was too lazy to get off my indolent ass during these next long days of mental and physical recovery. I needed him to be Niko.

What woke me at 2:17 AM wasn't Niko, although it was. It wasn't the brother I knew; instead it was the lost version of that same brother. Stuck in a dream that had morphed to nightmare.

"_Cal_."

On the floor and leaning into the crux of where my bed met the wall, he was asleep. Niko didn't talk in his sleep, even when horrifying images of bad things happening were dancing in his head. His saying of my name was an unconscious word of fear and regret. As were the words that followed.

"_I'm here, Cal. I'm staying. Junior's dead. He's not coming back. I killed him. We'll leave tomorrow...need rest first."_

I knew those words from twelve years ago; knew them like they were printed on the palm of my hand. Even though I'd been partially catatonic then, a traumatized eleven year old, I remembered…never forgot…Niko's words or actions. Curled onto my mattress, wrapping me tight in his arms, telling me he was there and that he'd make everything better. Things had never gotten better, but it wasn't for my brother's lack of absolute dedication and devotion to the cause.

Me.

But, things happen. Monsters happen. And now here we were and I knew I couldn't allow Nik to spend one more damn second in that part of our lives. I was limited though with my mummy hands and head clouded from drugs and pain. But those obstacles wouldn't have prevented Niko from getting to me and they wouldn't prevent me from doing the same.

With elbows and legs, I maneuvered out of the bed and onto the floor, pushing as close to Nik as I could without squeezing the life out of him. He didn't wake and I'd have admitted to a tendril of fear slicing through me if I'd allowed it. I was focused though. On Nik. Leaning against him, I begin a series of slow, even, deep breaths. Part of that mediation crap he always fed from. But sometimes crap worked, so what the hell.

My turn to save his sanity.

"Stop, Nik. I'm here. I'm okay. It's okay, big brother. I'll keep you safe for the night, okay?"

After a minute, Niko stopped fidgeting and his long-ago words faded. I couldn't wrap my arms around him like he had with me, not unless I wanted the raw-flesh pain to knock me over and out, but I could be that pillar of stability for him. He'd been the Wall of China for me these past twenty-whatever years, it was the least I could do.

Early morning came. Early morning went. That Niko wasn't up and running marathons at 5AM said something about the both of our emotional and physical conditions. I hadn't gone back to sleep since I'd climbed into the floor. Partially because I had to pee like a damn racehorse; partially because of the absurdly intense pain in my hands, but mostly because I'd promised my brother I'd keep him safe. And I had.

Once up, he got me to and from the bathroom, helped me figure out the best way to eat with mummy hands – my method of just sticking my face onto the plate didn't sit well with Mr. Manners – and changed my bandages. That in itself took time and I wasn't sure which was more painful, the removing of the old or the wrapping of the new.

"They'll heal, Cal. You'll have plenty of scaring, but they'll heal."

I hadn't expected any differently, but that was Nik, assuring his little brother again that everything would be okay.

"Until then maybe I just won't eat or drink anything to keep bathroom duties to a minimum."

He eyed me carefully, thinking back long past twelve years ago and I knew…_I knew_…what was coming and stopped him before he could say it.

"Diapers and ass wiping. Yes, Mr. Mom, you've done it all. No need to rehash that type of information, especially now. Just…just knock me out when I tell you have to go. I really don't need to be conscious for any of it anyway, do I?"

"I would prefer your assistance, since they are your bodily functions, however, a simple pinch a nerve in your neck can and will cause immediate release of urine. Should you need…"

Not having this conversation!

"Jesus, Cyrano, enough already. Damn it! How about we just don't talk about it. I like that idea. Yes, let's go with it."

Niko shrugged, slightly disappointed he wouldn't get to use his Vulcan nerve pinch on me. But at least this latest round of awkward conversation had come to a halt.

And now…I was in the mood for pancakes.

I'd been a good little brother, right? And good little brothers deserved pancakes, damn it.

I followed Nik to the kitchen and sat expectantly at the table, mummy-lifting a glass of non-soy, non-expired chocolate milk to my lips. The glass didn't slip or fall and I got almost all of the milk into my mouth. If that wasn't success, nothing was.

Niko turned from where he'd stuck his head into the small pantry and stared at me, raising one eyebrow and curling one side of his lips into his version of a grin. Then he just shook his head, no doubt eyeing the chocolate dribbles of goodness roaming down my chin and onto the table.

I didn't catch his eyes; I was too busy looking at the box that was in his hands.

"Pancakes? Really, Cyrano?"

"I can't read your mind, Cal, but I know you. You think you played the good little brother card last night and deserve a reward."

"I did. I do."

"If only positive reinforcement had worked when you were a kid. I will make you pancakes."

"With real butter and syrup? Not the all-natural crap that tastes like roots and cardboard?"

"All the fat and sugar your clogged heart desires."

The box landed in front of me and he scooped anally-measured cups from the box, mixed the creation with eggs and milk and twenty minutes later, I had pancakes. Of course after they landed in front of my face, all gooey and fattening and goodness and…I realized there was no way I could hold a fork with my bandaged hands. Never let the impossible stop me however as the hamster in my brain began to circle in its' wheel. My eyes darted back and forth and my face inched closer to the heaven-on-a-plate. And then...

"Do it, Cal, and Robin is your new roommate until your hands are healed."

My face stopped its momentum and I made a humph sound into my breakfast.

Mummy hands sucked ass.

So did being hand fed by my big brother, once I got past the age of one.

"Fine, Nik. But no airplane sounds or I'll spit it out all over you."

"The truly mature do not venture into airplane sounds. And don't plan on pancakes tomorrow."

Okay, I had already assumed that. Hell, getting them today almost shocked my heart to failure, but Nik did have his ways of making sure I knew he loved me. Not that I doubted it, not ever, but it's nice to have that affirmation every so often, especially when half of you is the scariest monster to ever walk the planet.

One fork full of smothered pancake headed my way.

This felt silly.

And it was.

But it wasn't.

It was Niko doing the one thing he did better than any other thing in the whole damn world. Take care of his pain-in-the-ass little brother.

This version of that little brother came with mummy hand accessories, but it still counted.

Even more so.

And I loved him for it.

* * *

The end


End file.
